


The Other Side

by CheshireLies



Category: Marble Hornets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-29
Updated: 2014-01-29
Packaged: 2018-01-10 12:38:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1159831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheshireLies/pseuds/CheshireLies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Entry 80. </p><p>A man wakes up in a hotel with no memory, not even of his own name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

He wakes up. It’s a hotel room, that much is obvious, and there’s a repetitive thumping sound. It takes him a few moments of staring blearily into space to realize the flickering is from a TV. 

Slowly, he sits up, and almost immediately there is a searing pain across his stomach. On a reflex he raises his hand to his gut, letting out a strangled sound of pain. Ow. 

In small, careful movements he manages to sit up and get off the bed, to limp to the bathroom. The face in the mirror is gaunt and tired, his eyes shadowed heavily by what might as well be bruises. Faces aren’t supposed to look that pale. 

The feeling of dread curling in his chest, he lifts his shirt. A lump forms in his throat. The area around the injury is bruises and inflamed, perhaps infected, and there’s a scabbed over hole. 

A gunshot wound. 

For a few moments he searches his memory, trying to find anything. It’s horror that crosses his face as he stares at his own reflection with the realization he doesn’t even know his own name, or how he got here, or what happened. 

A moment later, there is the soft, familiar click of a doorknob turning.


	2. 2

In a flurry he reaches for the nearest thing that could be a weapon, inwardly laughing as he realizes he’s seized a toothbrush. Right, you can take it away and give them tooth rot. 

He watches the door open and shut, and a girl with dark hair past her shoulders stands in the hall, a bag of groceries in one hand. She looks at the bed expectantly, and a moment later notices him standing in the bathroom doorway. 

"Jay!" Her face lights up and he falters, suddenly aware he’s still holding the toothbrush in his shaking hand. The girl’s face isn’t one of someone who means to hurt him, but still he doesn’t move, doesn’t respond. Her smile fades. "You don’t remember." 

Remember what? Jay. His name is Jay, at least that’s what she’d said. Sure. It worked as well as not having one at all. “I.” He swallowed hard, huffing quietly while he tried to find words. “N-no. I don’t.” 

"Well." She laughed in a small way, eyes expressing her upset more than the rest of her. "I, uh. I’m Jessica." 

Jessica. There’s a tiny voice in the back of his head, saying you know her, this is important, you know her. But he can’t place her. 

"Can you move around okay?" Her eyes flick over him, lingering on the gunshot wound. 

"Um. Y-yeah." Jay sets the toothbrush down, feeling the blood rush to his face. He’s an idiot. 

"Okay, um. I. Want to show you somebody, maybe that’ll jog your memory?" Jessica brushes her hair out of her face, looking anxious. Jay wants to ask a hundred questions - where are they, what happened, who shot me? 

But instead he stands awkwardly around while Jessica puts away groceries and to his embarrassment she has to help him put on his shoes because bending makes his vision black with agony. Just before they walk out the door he spots a hand held camera lying on the desk, but as he reaches for it Jessica shakes her head. 

"Leave it." 

He feels at a loss without knowing why, but does as she says, following her down the hallway. The hotel is strangely empty, but then he doesn’t know what time it is either. Maybe its early, or late, or … but there isn’t someone at the front desk either. Jessica says nothing about it, and outside the sun is high overhead but there isn’t a single car in the parking lot. 

"Why - " 

"Just wait." Jessica has a tendency to fiddle with her hair, and whether its a nervous habit or just something she does he doesn’t know. He feels like it’s something he should remember. They walk down the road, and he notices Jessica looking at him now and then but never saying a word, as if she’s waiting for him to do something. 

Like the hotel the roads are empty. Jay glances around, head swiveling like it’s on a ball. Abruptly Jessica comes to a stop in the road, and her eyes are fixed on something across the road. The building has a sign out front, something something Dr. something, Jay isn’t paying attention because there’s a seated figure with a cigarette between his fingers on the bench outside. 

"Tim!" Jay breaks into a run, and he’s yelling so hard and loud his lungs hurt, but too soon he’s forced to stop, hunched over his knees as he coughs violently from the effort. The wound on his stomach feels like it’s ripped open, and Jessica grabs him by the elbow to steady him. 

Jessica’s face is pitying, and when Jay looks back at the hunched figure Tim hasn’t moved, he’s still just sitting and puffing away, thoughts somewhere else. Jay feels his insides knot. 

"Tim?" His voice falters. 

"He can’t hear you." Jessica licks her lips, looking away for a moment, pained. 

Jay huffs again, blinking a dozen times as if that’ll help some how. “W-why? Why not, he’s right there, why - ?” 

Jessica just looks at him. The dread is thick enough to choke him, and Jay lifts up the edge of his shirt to look at the gunshot wound. The skin has split and it looks more irritated than ever, but there’s one thing missing. 

He’s not bleeding.


End file.
